


still hurts.

by salamoonder



Series: Gifts from the Dark [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Panic Attacks, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:28:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23489830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamoonder/pseuds/salamoonder
Summary: Molly is back--but it isn't Molly that's back, is it? It's just this body, without feeling, without experience, and a whole lotta hurt.Very big warning for basically the entire thing being a panic attack, please love me, I am not having a good time. That is all.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Series: Gifts from the Dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783858
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	still hurts.

and okay look: the thing is that it’s not fair. it’s not fair that he’s lucien and the nonagon and empty--mollymauk tealeaf, mt--it’s not fair that he has invented himself so many times and it’s not fair that he is none of those things and all of those things and it is hateful that they are all looking at him like that

like he’s going to do something? like he’s their savior? like he should or could feel anything and it’s not right that he should know these people or that the memories should come back to him or that any of it is real but here it is, here he is, and there is yasha looking at him like he holds the entire world between two clawed fingers, and he cannot do it

he cannot be the bigger person cannot save himself with his bullshit with his made up good cannot be anything right now, he is nothing, should be nothing, and why would they bring him back if they know that, why would fucking anyone who claimed to love you do something like that to you--

and yasha takes two steps back and he’s not even doing anything not moving or looking or flinching just processing this whirl of memory and pain and the itch of graveyard dirt beneath his nails and against his skin and shifting loosely through his hair and the grit in the back of his throat pushing further in as though calling him back and he can tell

she sees this in him, sees something that is not a person, in front of her, not hers, not hers anymore--

and--

and for the first time (was there ever a first time? is everything a first time? how many goddamn times will he have a first time?)

he can see fear in a barbarian’s eyes, and it should not make him feel any sort of spark should not make him feel at all, he is nothing

but it does and he closes his eyes in relief that he still works maybe

this is a broken broken machine but it is still crawling ahead barely and maybe that will be enough? will it be enough? (what would be enough?)

and yasha chokes on a word, on his name, not on his name but a name she assigns to him, on a shape that’s still foreign to his ears, and. mollymauk why did he choose mollymauk? is there a common thread here, do they all tie together? can he pick up the pieces left over, plunge his hand into the acid of the past and pull forth the broken bits of lives and can he maybe put the puzzle back together can he--

but he tried that didn’t he?

he tried it once and all it was, all it is, it’s just pretending, just more bullshit, and really that is the only true thing (the truth will lie to you, he remembers, the truth will twist things and sharpen them and the truth is like a glaive in your chest--he remembers telling nott, he remembers--)

if this is the only true thing about him then--

yasha doesn’t even taste familiar in his mouth, no matter how many times he forms the shape of the word. yasha. yasha. yasha. they were friends. are friends? could be again, could be if he could just think for one minute, one single second, if he could just be a person--

she is reaching out to him and he’s not flinching away because maybe she can make him a person again maybe any part of this will make sense

“molly?”

there is a moment of contact between them and it is all soft cloth and air and the hitch in yasha’s chest and he feels none of it, feels nothing until she sobs “mollymauk”

and it doesn’t actually fall into place, it doesn’t work like that, but yasha, yasha is a person and she is here and he is here and for just a second the ground beneath his feet doesn’t feel like a fever dream and he just slumps against her, and she scoops him up as though he weighed nothing and then that grounding moment is gone but it’s alright because maybe a part of her hair is real, maybe the scent of leather and the soft skin on her neck, maybe a bit of it is real, maybe anything is

yasha, dear

he’s said it before, he knows he has, like something you wake up to as a kid, like words on your lips that came from a dream that is quickly fading, and he doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until her arms crush around his chest and that--that is what he needed, that bit of pain

and. oh gods they are here again, empty empty empty, and this is yasha and he is mollymauk and-- gods. fuck.

gods, he is alive again, and death is the dream, and he never wants to go to sleep again, and he buries his head in yasha’s shoulder and just screams, trying to shake loose the last of his grave, and no one should die like this, no one

no one should have to

he closes his eyes and breathes and the air is real again and okay yasha is here and she took care of him for so long and she will do it again and he can’t even cry (he never cried while she was crying, it was too precious, too much) so that will happen later and there will be more people and more life and more lives and more of it coming back slowly and nothing will feel good and he will just have to breathe

and the bullshit will come later, will come easily, and he will remember how to smile, but not before it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a much larger work that I have yet to finish writing; basically, Molly comes back and fucking panics. This is a total departure from my usual style (or at least my usual published style) and the result of me going absolutely fucking insane during this goddamn pandemic with no job.


End file.
